ttle, wooded knoll before he stopped, lest
the crowd, seeing them halt, might think it worth while to follow them
afoot.

"They surely didn't intend you to fall off," he said whimsically, when
his knife released the strain. But his lips tightened at the outrage;
and his eyes, bent upon Jack's left ankle, wore the look of one who
could kill without pity.

"They'll never do it to another man," declared Jack, with vindictive
relish. "It was Davis and the Captain; I killed 'em both." He rolled
stiffly from the saddle, found his feet like dead things and stumbled
to a little hillock, where he sat down.

Dade, kneeling awkwardly in his heavy, bearskin chaparejos, picked at
the bonds with the point of his knife. "Lucky you had on boots," he
remarked. "Even as it is, you're likely to carry creases for a while.
How the deuce did you manage to get into this particular scrape?--if I
might ask!"

"I didn't get into it. This particular scrape got me. Say, it's lucky
you happened along just when you did."

To this very obvious statement the other made no reply. He cut the
last strand of the rope that bound Jack's ankles so mercilessly, and
stood up. "You better take off your boots and rub some feeling into
your feet while I make a hackamore for that horse. The sooner we get
out of this, the better. What's left of the Committee will probably be
pretty anxious to see you."

"Oh, damn the Committee!--as Bill remarked after the trial." Jack made
an attempt to remove one of his boots, found the pain intolerable and
desisted with a groan. "I wish they would show up," he declared. "I'd
like to give them a taste of this foot-tying business!"

Dade went on tying the hackamore with a haste that might be called
anxious. With just two bullets left in the pistol and with no powder
upon his person for further reloading, he could not share Jack's
eagerness to meet the Committee again. When Surry gave over rolling
with his tongue the little wheel in his bit, and with lifted head
and eyes alert perked his ears forward towards the hill they had just
crossed, he slipped the hackamore hurriedly into place and turned to
his friend.

"You climb on to Surry, and we'll pull out," he said shortly. "I
wouldn't give two pesos for this buckskin, but we're going to add
horse-stealing to our other crimes; and while it's all right to damn
the Committee, it's just as well to do it at a distance, just now, old
man."

The caution fell flat, for Jack was